Don't change for anyone

A Story by Kat

"Can you remember who you were before the world told you who you should be?'--k.w

One of my earliest memories is walking through the front of my school on the first day of kindergarten. I was terrified because I didn't know anyone in my class. I remember as I begged my mom not to leave me she knelt down in front of me and promised me everything would be ok and that I would see her in just a few hours. After she had left I remember panicking because I didn't know where to stand and everyone was staring at me. Suddenly one of the boys in my class walked up to me and asked if I wanted to play with legos with him. I was so happy I thought I had made a new friend. A few minutes later a few others guys had joined us and we decided to compete and see who could build the best castle. While all of the students were playing our teacher went through the attendance to make sure everyone had gotten to class. When my name had been called all the boys around me started laughing. "Isn't Kat a girls name?". At this point, most of the student had started to move over to the area we were in. I remember being so confused and looking around for someone to tell me what was happening. "Yeah..." I said hesitantly. I felt like I was falling into some sort trap that there was no escape from. One of my classmates finally connected the dots, "You're a Girl?!". I started to tear up as the girls laughed at how my hair looked like a boy and turned their backs on me and the boys that I had thought where my friends crushed the castle I had been working on and told me that girls aren't allowed to play with Legos. At the end of the day, I ran to my mother crying and begging her to never send me back.

I grew my hair out.

I was sitting in the back of the bus in third grade. I had been trying to ignore a few of the older girls on my bus by reading my book when one of them grabbed it out of my hands. " Seriously, we just got out of school. Why are you always reading? No wonder you don't have any friends." one of them had sneered at me. "Or maybe it's just because she's fat." another had laughed. I didn't hear anything else they said because I grabbed my stuff and ran off the bus. I was two hours late getting home.

I stopped eating.

The class had just started when my 5th-grade math teacher had called me to his desk. Without saying a word he stood up and held my paper up for all to see. I had made a 21. The class laughed as he said that some of us would grow up to be great people while others would be working at Mcdonalds for the rest of their lives. I had begged him to put me in tutoring, but he had said that ''I'm a teacher, not a miracle worker'".

I havent made a grade lower than an A since.

I was reading my book on the bleachers before class in my 7th-grade year when a girl from my grade walked over to me. When I looked up at her I could see two of her friends behind her. "I noticed you don't really have many friends so I got you a Christmas present," I remembered her from a few of the classes we had together but we never talked. I was shocked no one outside of my family had ever given me a Christmas present before. Before I could say anything both of her friends came up beside me and dumped black fingernail polish over my head and clothes. All I could hear as they walked away was the sound of them laughing and someone saying "Just slit your wrists already you emo freak". I ran to the bathroom crying and hid out there for the rest of the day.

I started dressing like those around me.

I had been walking by myself through the halls in freshman year when a guy from my science class walked up beside me. He seemed nice at first just asking politely what class I was going to and what exams I had to take, but the longer we talked the closer he got to me and he was honestly scaring me. I tried speeding up but he reached forward and grabbed my wrist to pull me back. "Where do you think you're going?" he got really close to my face. "I'll scream if you don't let me go.",I say trying to sound confident. He uses all of his weight to slam me into the lockers and I start screaming at the top of my lungs. He was immediately off and away from me when teachers start coming out into the hallway. I had ended up with a week of in-school suspension for interrupting class time while he still went on to play at the basketball game that night.

I stopped asking for help.

"Never change for anyone. After you do, all they want you to do is change again. And as hard as it was to change the first time, to give up everything you knew, and be half empty afterward isn't worth it.